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Welcome to the Plumis fire protection blog. Stay informed about domestic fire safety, fire building regulations and ADB-compliant solutions for open plan living. Please feel free to browse through the posts and comment about what you read.

An estimated 2,900 clothes dryer fires in residential buildings are reported to US fire departments each year, causing an estimated five deaths, 100 injuries and $35 million in property loss.

These are some of the findings of a new study from the US Fire Administration’s national fire incident reporting system which examines the characteristics of clothes dryer fires in residential buildings.

Other findings include:

Clothes dryer fire incidence in residential buildings was higher in the
fall and winter months, peaking in January at 11 percent.

Failure to clean (such as removing lint from traps, vents and surrounding areas of a dryer) was the leading factor contributing to ignition

Dust, fibre, and lint and clothing not on a person were the leading items first ignited

54% of clothes dryer fires were confined to the object of origin

Clothes dryer fire incidence was higher in the autumn and winter months, peaking in January at 11%.

Friday, 17 August 2012

The Fire Kills campaign is the national fire safety campaign delivered by Communities and Local Government. The campaign aims to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by accidental dwelling fires by actively encouraging people to change their behaviour and attitudes towards fire safety. The Fire Kills campaign's 'breathe' advert has won a number of awards, including a Silver Lion for Best Cinematography, a D&AD Yellow Pencil for Best Direction and a Creative Circle Gold award for Best Cinematography.

Open plan living is a trend that is here to stay, with an increasing number of homeowners using this type of layout to make their homes feel larger and brighter. Gone are the days of a poky kitchen and separate formal dining room. Now, you are likely to find large family spaces in the form of modern kitchen-diners. These spaces add value to your abode and make it not only a better place for you to live but also an easier home to sell when it comes to putting it on the market.

Most kitchen-diners are at the back of the house, opening out on to the garden. This makes perfect sense: a kitchen-diner is nothing if not an exercise in lifestyle, and what could be more pleasant than flinging open the back door and bringing the outside in? In many homes, that back door is fully glazed, being one side of the streamlined glass box that is the popular kitchen-diner extension. But remember, under the latest building regulations new glazing panels must comprise less than 22.5 per cent of a property's floor area.

You might think your current home is in no way suited to the idea of open-plan living, but in fact it could be that by knocking down a wall or two you have the ideal space. Plumis produces novel solutions in domestic active fire protection to meet building regulations. Intended as a more affordable and easy to install alternative to sprinklers, Automist is a fire protection innovation which provides developers with design freedom and flexibility for open plan spaces. It uses water mist technology fed from a standard mains supply to, suppress and control fire, and utilises much less water than a traditional sprinkler system.

Thursday, 9 August 2012

Under Regulation 38
of the Building Regulations the person carrying out the work is required to forward
on fire safety information of a building to the responsible person, as defined
by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The information required
relates to the design and construction of the building or extension, and the
services, fittings and equipment provided, which will assist the responsible
person to operate and maintain the building or extension with the required
safety. The Passive Fire Protection Federation (PFPF) believes there is insufficient
awareness of the need to pass on key fire safety information upon completion of
a building.

“[Approved
Document B] provides excellent guidance right through the construction phase of
a building and on into its time of occupation,” said PFPF chairman David
Sugden. “Regulation 7 of the Building Regulations points people to third party
certification to ensure the use of quality products and installers, while
Regulation 38 requires information on what has been installed to be given to
the responsible person.

“Regulation 38 is not just a recommendation, it is a requirement, since this
information can greatly improve the building occupier’s understanding of the
safety precautions installed within a building,” said Mr Sugden.